The performative government and Bill Morneau

[eyeball]

On 1/15/2023 at 11:12 AM, Queenmandy85 said:

Minister Morneau was in the WE scandal up to his neck. There were other questions of ethics as well. 

I said the primary rule about winning elections applies to political parties, not politicians. The party is the vehicle for winning, but the candidate must hold to a higher standard. Parties and politicians must also adhere to the rules of sportsmanship. How you play the game is most important.  Ministerial responsibility is vital in a parliamentary system. Pleasing voters with goodies, or promises of goodies  is what a party does because pleasing voters is what democracy is for. However, if any politician has a choice between re-election and following her conscience, then honour and tradition demand they choose conscience. So far, that is not a decision Prime Minister Trudeau has exercised well. Disclaimer: If I were Prime Minister after having struggled to get there over decades, I am pretty certain which way I would choose. When I think back to all those years when my destiny was certain to be Prime Minister of Canada and how I would have governed...I looked a lot like President Trump, only with a different hairstyle. 

I'm sorry for saying so but this seems particularly jaded sandwiched where it is in between mention of higher standards and conscience and honour - and voters are the greediest component of the lot in our political system you say.  I'm guessing this is the tradition in which you would have governed us.

 

 

[eyeball]

2 hours ago, SpankyMcFarland said:

A PM surrounded by advisers and deaf to Cabinet colleagues is a system problem in the British model. It long predates the current Trudeau and can be seen in the UK and Ireland as well. 

It would be nice to find a way of introducing a more technocratic aspect to our governance where democracy plays a more advisory role than an executive one, especially for those aspects of it where some real expertise is required.

I don't know what to say about the moral or ethical background that would also be required of technocrats other than to suggest their schools of accreditation and peers help provide a check and balance to their authority.

I'm an atheist and I'm afraid whatever stack of bibles MP's and Cabinet Members swear on doesn't cut it for me.

[SpankyMcFarland]

I don’t think Morneau got into politics to enrich himself. However, his apprenticeship as an MP before high office was too brief. We complain about professional politicians but it is a very difficult job to master, quite different from the business world despite superficial similarities. Competing each day with people you dislike intensely while maintaining an amicable exterior, taking ferocious and often unfair criticism without apparent emotional response - these are skills which usually have to be learned. Did Morneau ever watch the British drama ‘The Thick of It’? This lays out graphically that cabinet ministers are in a brutal daily struggle with the PMO in addition to the PM, each other and civil servants. Nobody can expect a comfy ride.

 

Edited January 17, 2023 by SpankyMcFarland

[Queenmandy85]

17 hours ago, eyeball said:

I'm sorry for saying so but this seems particularly jaded sandwiched where it is in between mention of higher standards and conscience and honour - and voters are the greediest component of the lot in our political system you say.  I'm guessing this is the tradition in which you would have governed us.

 

 

In retrospect, I would have governed like Trump. I was under the mistaken idea that the PM is boss and cabinet ministers and bureaucrats would do what I told them to do. On the positive side, my ideas were so good that the voters would have embraced them enmass and I would go down in history as the greatest PM in history. I would give me about twenty minutes in office before I was turfed. 

But Spanky, I've never heard it expressed more eloquently.

Edited January 17, 2023 by Queenmandy85